BREAKING NEWSEthan Slater's Ex-Wife Lilly Jay Admits She 'Never' Saw Her Divorce Coming in Shocking Personal Essay
Ethan Slater filed for divorce from his ex-wife, Lilly Jay, in July 2023.
Ethan Slater's ex-wife, Lilly Jay, has broken her silence on her messy split from the actor more than one year after he filed for divorce in July 2023.
In an emotional personal essay published Thursday, December 19, Jay opened up about the abrupt demise of her relationship with Slater after he left his four-year marriage and simultaneously moved on with his Wicked costar Ariana Grande last year.
Lilly Jay published a personal essay reflecting on the downfall of her marriage to Ethan Slater.
"No one gets married thinking they’ll get divorced, in the same way we don’t board a plane expecting to crash. But I really never thought I would get divorced," she confessed in the tell-all dissertation. "Especially not just after giving birth to my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity."
Jay and Slater welcomed their son in August 2022. The Broadway star filed for divorce just one month before their kid's first birthday.
Ethan Slater moved on with Ariana Grande almost immediately after his split from Lilly Jay.
Noting how "becoming a psychologist solidified my detachment from social media," Jay explained: "My partner was on a different path, in which social media and exposure were not impediments but rather necessities. We puzzled through this predicament on walks, over pizza, in our apartment and excitedly concocted rules of engagement of how and what he would share about our lives together."
Jay also discussed how she "confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career," in reference to the filming of Wicked in England.
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Ariana Grande faced backlash for appearing to step between Ethan Slater and Lilly Jay's marriage.
"Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us," she confessed.
When reports exposed her and Slater's split, Jay said she "work[ed] diligently" trying to accept "the sudden public downfall of my marriage."
Ethan Slater shares a 2-year-old son with Lilly Jay.
She explained: "This, I tell myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. Slowly but surely, I have come to believe that in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a lifetime of sweetness is waiting for me and my child. While our partnership has changed, our parenthood has not. Both of us fiercely love our son 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided."
Jay went on to detail mental health struggles she experienced after giving birth to her son.
"My entire adult life, I feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me. One day in London, I looked up and found that they had both arrived," she shared. "And I am okay. If I can’t be invisible anymore, I may as well introduce myself. You know how a sponge is most effective at absorbing liquid when it’s already a bit wet? Maybe we can think about my messy not-so-personal life in that way: a dose of my own loss, rage, powerlessness, sadness that helps me hold yours."
The Cut published Jay's personal essay.
